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Bengaluru: The ongoing agitation by sugarcane farmers in Karnataka’s Belagavi district took a violent turn on Friday. Several police personnel suffered injuries and multiple vehicles were vandalised after a crowd of protesting farmers engaged in stone pelting near the Hattaragi toll plaza on National Highway 48.

Earlier, the protests by the farmers were centred around the Mudalagi taluk’s Gurlapur Cross for about a week, after which thousands of agitators led by Chunnappa Pujeri, the state president of Karnataka State Farmers’ Association, withheld the protest granting two days’ time to the state government to revise the rates of sugarcane crops to Rs 3,500 per tonne. However, since there was no response from the ruling Congress government other than pacifying statements, thousands of farmers decided to agitate at the Hattaragi toll plaza on the Pune-Bengaluru National Highway on Friday. They had arrived with tractors and other earthmovers and blocked the entire highway and even started cooking on the road underneath an overbridge, indicating that their agitation could be a prolonged stand-off.

Police personnel were deployed in and around the toll plaza and the cops tried to engage with the agitating farmers peacefully, requesting them to disperse and allow the movement of traffic. However, when a few agitating farmers engaged in heated conversations with the cops, they were temporarily detained by the latter and things went out of control. The agitating farmers engaged in violence—pelting stones at the police, vandalising the trucks that were on the road. A group of farmers even chased the police personnel for nearly three kilometres on the National Highway. At least six police personnel including a police sub-inspector sustained injuries in the violence.

It was then that the police personnel contacted Farmers’ Association president Chunappa Pujeri, who rushed to the Hattaragi toll plaza and spoke to the farmer leaders there. He urged that their peaceful protests have been gaining momentum and the government would soon come up with solutions for their issues, and at this time, if they engage in violence, the entire effort of organising the sugarcane farmers’ peaceful agitation would go in vain. It was only after Pujeri urging the local farmer leaders not to engage in violence that the crowd that had gathered at the toll plaza started dispersing.

Belagavi Superintendant of Police, Bhimashankar Guled said that there was suspicion of the involvement of miscreants from outside in the violence. “We will identify the miscreants using the 50 CCTv cameras that have been installed at the toll plaza and the nearby areas for monitoring the protest and will initiate legal action on them,” he said.

POLITICAL FALLOUT

As tensions flared on Friday evening, the political battle over the farmers’ issues also intensified. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah accused Union Minister for Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs, Pralhad Joshi of issuing false statements on ethanol allocation to oil marketing companies.

Issuing a statement on Friday, Siddaramaiah stated, “I demand that Union Minister Joshi apologize to the farmers of Karnataka for his false statements made with the sole intention of turning them against our government. There is still time—let him urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi to order higher ethanol procurement from Karnataka and wash away the sin of betraying our farmers.”

“Our demand is simple—ethanol allocation should be proportionate to production capacity. Instead of supporting this pro-farmer demand, Pralhad Joshi has spoken against us, thereby betraying the farmers of Karnataka,” CM Siddaramaiah claimed.

A Karnataka cabinet meeting chaired by Siddaramaiah held deliberations on the sugarcane farmers’ crisis for three hours at Vidhana Soudha. Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Siddaramaiah announced that he would hold a meeting with the sugar factory owners at Vidhana Soudha soon.

Siddaramaiah also announced that he would meet farmer leaders at the earliest and maintained that the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) is fixed by the Central government. He further stated that the cabinet has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking an urgent meeting to discuss farmers’ demands.

“FRP has been determined by the BJP-led Central Government. Farmers should not fall prey to the double standards of BJP leaders in the state, who have always betrayed them,” Chief Minister Siddaramaiah appealed.

Meanwhile, responding to CM Siddaramaiah’s statements, Union Minister Pralhad Joshi accused Siddaramaiah of twisting facts and asserted that Karnataka had supplied nearly 140 crore litres of ethanol in 2024-25. He said ethanol output had increased 26 times since 2013-14 under the BJP rule.

The opposition BJP in the state lashed out at CM Siddaramaiah, demanding his resignation if he couldn’t handle the crisis and stated that the only thing Karnataka CM was doing was to blame the Centre for everything.

Minister of Heavy Industries, H.D. Kumaraswamy levelled serious allegations against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, claiming that he had written to the Prime Minister in an attempt to evade his responsibility in resolving the problems faced by sugarcane farmers.

The Union Minister stated, “This government has no intention of responding to the plight of farmers. It is trying to shift every issue onto the Centre and escape its duties.”

Kumaraswamy said that if the Chief Minister truly wanted, it was a “very small issue” that could be resolved within minutes.